3 Expert Backstage Beauty Tips from New York Fashion Week

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Designers are debuting their fall collections in New York right now, but the hair and makeup accompanying lush coats and heavy knits? No need to wait eight months to wear it in real life. Here are a few handy tips from the world’s best makeup artists to start using now.

Makeup artist Diane Kendal said that designer Jason Wu didn’t want to make any sort of statement with the makeup—nothing to distract from the clothes. But the fact is that even models can benefit from just a bit of liner eye. So while she left cheeks, lips, and lids almost bare, Kendal drew a super thin line along the upper lashline to define the models’ eyes.

“I like the idea of matching the weight of your makeup to the weight of your clothing,” makeup artist Sarah Lucero said backstage at Rebecca Minkoff. “So a thick tweed overcoat for fall calls for an opaque lip.”

Revlon’s Global Artistic Director, Gucci Westman, was inspired by both Katherine Hepburn and the French Yé Yé girls of the ‘60s. “The rag & bone girl is easy, kind of street, and has one thing,” Westman said backstage. “She doesn’t have 15 steps—like eye shadow, then lipstick, then something else.” Who doesn’t want to be that girl?